What an incredible trip, 11/10 would recommend! My report :))

City: Shanghai, China

Hello, my friends. I recently returned from the most surreal and exceptional experience in China. I was there from 5th April till 20th April (excluding travel days) and visited: Shanghai (with a day trip to Hangzhou), Xi'an, Chongqing, Zhangjiajie (including an evening in Furong Town) and Beijing (in that order). Few things I noticed / realised / understood which may be of help to those currently planing their trips! 1. You really literally only need the big 3 apps: Alipay, Amap and Wechat. 95% of all my payments were made through Alipay (including for Didi and public transportation). Only in some instances did I use Wechat to make payments. Amap is truly seamless when it comes to navigation. 2. Trip.com eSim worked perfectly for me. I got 100GB data per day lol as it was only like £23 so thought why not! Just meant I could use my phone all I wanted without the stress. I did have LetsVPN downloaded as a backup but hardly used it as I was constantly using the eSim which was perfect - all apps (excluding TikTok) worked, with no problems using the Chinese apps either. 3. Powerbanks - just got one 10,000mAh one from Miniso on the first day of landing and it worked great. I mostly used high speed trains for my domestic travel but had 1 flight from ZJJ to Beijing. They did in fact thoroughly check my powerbank at security at the airport so my advice would be to pls just buy one when in China and avoid the risk. 4. The people, honestly, some of the loveliest and friendliest ever, of course I am generalising overall as some were kind of abrupt with their stares or pushing / cutting in line but whatever that's life. Overall they were so nice and really patient when I was using Google translate. A lot of them did stare / ask for pictures / take unsolicited pictures but honestly did not mind! 5. Temperature was pretty varied throughout the cities we went to and during the morning / afternoon / evening. Beijing was most definitely the coldest (the winds are strong AF). Mornings and evenings were definitely quite cold so would recommend packing some jumpers / full sleeve t-shirts / full length jeans or trousers if you are planning on travelling during this period. 6. There are really no tissues or toilet rolls in most public bathrooms so just take a set of tissue in your backpack. We tended to mostly visit bathrooms in big malls as it meant (i) some had western bathrooms rather than all being squat and (ii) higher chances of there being toilet paper available. 7. The food portions in China are SO BIG please, we almost always ended up over-ordering because we wanted to try it all but then quickly realised it's just too much food and it's bad to waste so we really cut down on what we ordered. Especially as they also just tend to give a bunch of side dishes with what we ordered. 8. Please look at the Michelin guide / bib gourmand options in the big cities like Beijing, Shanghai etc. These places are absolutely incredible, of course they may be a short line / queue but in my eyes, worth it! Of course, you can also use Dianping / Rednote to look at what the locals are eating (which is what we did too) but just another option to consider :) This is what I can think of so far, if and when I think of more insights will edit and add accordingly! In case you have any questions, pls feel free to ask and will try my best to answer! Overall, an incredible experience and I loved every day of it and really cannot wait to go back sometime in the future :))

Tags: r/chinatravel